It’s been five years. Even so, it feels like only yesterday when we had the unimaginable task of saying good-bye.

The sorrow that filled me the last time I held her as I stood by her mama, my daughter, occasionally rises up and flows over, flooding the moment with deep wishes for what might have been.

At times I have a glimpse of what might have been when her little sister grabs my hand and says, “Nana, I love you.”

As the years go by, the story holds more and more of what might have been–those sweet things that were marked and reserved in this world only for her.

The thing is . . . I know for sure there’s more to her story in a dimension that I can’t see but I know exists . . . a place that is brilliant with light, where the darkness has never existed, where there’s a life to be fully lived with profound love, joy, peace, and hope, where there’s more than can be imagined, where I will see her one day.

It gives me hope as I remember the words I said to her five years ago: